Nottingham University Business School (NUBS) in collaboration with CREATe is offering a PhD studentship covering full tuition fees (at the Home/EU rate) as well as tax-free living expenses of £ 13,590 per year for a period of up to three years. The studentship is open to Home/EU and Overseas candidates and will begin in October 2012.Over the last decade, the creative industries have been revolutionised by the Internet and the digital economy. However, for some creators and rightsholders the transition from analogue to digital has been as problematic as it has been promising.

Horizon is a partner in the AHRC-funded Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology (“CREATe”). CREATe will tackle this regulatory and business crisis, helping the UK creative industry and arts sectors survive, grow and become global innovation pioneers, with an ambitious programme of research delivered by an interdisciplinary team (law, business, economics, technology, psychology and cultural analysis) across 7 universities. CREATe aims to act as an honest broker, using open and transparent methods throughout to provide robust evidence for policymakers and legislators which can benefit all stakeholders. Within CREATe, Horizon is engaged in exploring technical issues around privacy in, ownership of and access to digital material.

The student will contribute to a research project on open design for business. The project seeks to examine how new business models can induce derivative works and at the same time, allows firms to retain sufficient control and protection of their intellectual property rights. We assess the impacts of newly emergent business models on sustaining individual and collective contributions to the design and production of new products and services.

Example questions that might be addressed within the PhD studies include:

• How do firms monitor and assert rights in derivative work?• Which business models to use to incentivize contributions from the creative public?

Candidates would benefit from having some experience of management and intellectual property research. Ideally, candidates should be conversant with copyright. As such, the project might be best suited to a student with a degree in management and a masters in management with law or vice versa – although other combinations would be of interest. The project will require qualitative and quantitative research, and work in an interdisciplinary research environment.

Prior to application, potential PhD students can e-mail or telephone Dr George Kuk, Associate Professor in Strategy and Information Systems, Nottingham University Business School.Contact george.kuk@nottingham.ac.uk or phone 0115 846 6611

To apply for this NUBS studentship, applicants should provide a curriculum vitae. In addition, you should include a personal statement/letter (up to a maximum of two single spaced A4 pages) outlining why you want to undertake this PhD research, what you have to offer and any other information that you think we should know. Please also include relevant information (e.g., transcripts, research skills, computing skills and experience, English language proficiency, etc.) in order to verify that you meet the entry requirements for our PhD programme, please refer to http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/phd/Admissions.html